[Du Mont]

For just the second time in the history of ION/i/PAX, ION (with fewer than 100 affiliates) has once again beaten the mighty mininet The CW (with twice the number of affiliates) last week in Nielsen households, P2+ viewers, and in A18-49 viewers (for the first time ever surpassing The CW in the money demo). This is only the second time in mininetwork history that ION/i/PAX has ever beaten or tied The CW or their mininet parents, UPN and The WB.

Week 15 (Dec.28-Jan.03):
ION 0.8HH/1%, 0.4 A18-49 (480,000), 1,240,000 P2+ viewers
The CW 0.6HH/1%, 0.4 A18-49 (470,000), 940,000 P2+ viewers

ION's households, A18-49 rating, A18-49 viewers and P2+ viewers were all ION/i network alltime highs, and this was the fifth consecutive week that ION has climbed above the 1,000,000 P2+ viewer threshold.

After 15 weeks of the 2009-10 season, in season-to-date averages, ION (0.6HH/1%, 0.3 A18-49, 960,000 P2+ viewers) is now ranked ahead of both TeleMundo and TeleFutura in households, and ION is ahead of TeleFutura in A18-49 and P2+ viewers.

ION's new ownership can also take enormous comfort in the strides made by ION over the last year vis-a-vis competing cabler networks. In calendar 2009, ION moved ahead of similarly targeted networks such as TVLand, Lifetime Movie Network (LMN) and Hallmark in average A18-49 viewership:

Top 58 A18-49ers in 2009 (with Comparatives for 2008)
*****************************************************
(Excludes pay networks i.e. HBO, SHOWTIME, TCM, STARZ)

# Network 2009 2008 Chg 000s % Chg Notes
-- -------- ---- ----- -------- ------- ------
1 FOX 3,811 4,338 -527 -12% SuperBowl 2008
2 CBS 3,160 3,082 78 3%
3 NBC 2,929 3,385 -456 -13% SuperBowl 2009
4 ABC 2,864 3,039 -175 -6%
5 Univis 1,862 1,968 -106 -5%
6 USA 1,383 1,317 66 5%
7 ESPN 1,108 1,043 65 6%
8 TBSC 1,068 1,128 -60 -5%
9 CW 893 1,075 -182 -17%
10 FX 780 715 65 9%
11 AEN 706 688 18 3%
12 DISC 673 655 18 3%
13 TeleMun 667 604 62 10%
14 MyNet 652 604 48 8% est.Oct-Dec 2009
15 FAM 613 588 25 4%
16 SYFY 607 616 -9 -1%
17 SPK 591 637 -46 -7%
18 COMEDY 590 667 -77 -12%
19 HIST 564 547 17 3%
20 FOOD 558 441 117 27%
21 NAN 555 602 -47 -8%
22 TLC 553 491 62 13%
23 MTV 527 578 -51 -9%
24 TRU 524 471 53 11%
25 LIFETIM 509 611 -102 -17%
26 BRAV 494 459 35 8%
27 VH1 474 485 -11 -2%
28 TeleFut 473 373 100 27%
29 HGTV 448 418 30 7%
30 AMC 416 433 -17 -4%
31 BET 412 331 81 24%
32 EN 383 357 26 7%
33 FOXN 379 387 -8 -2%
34 ION 258 151 107 71%
35 TRAV 256 201 55 27%
36 TVLD 244 289 -45 -16%
37 APL 240 203 37 18%
38 MSNBC 238 317 -79 -25%
39 LMN 228 197 31 16%
40 OXYG 225 212 13 6%
41 CNN 222 401 -179 -45%
42 HALL 206 239 -33 -14%
43 NGC 205 189 16 8%
44 VS 166 150 16 11%
45 SOAP 164 139 25 18%
46 WE 133 140 -7 -5%
47 SPD 132 137 -5 -4%
48 NFLN 118 93 25 27%
49 Azteca 115 106 9 8%
50 TVGN 97 102 -5 -5%
51 GALA 91 107 -16 -15%
52 TWC 90 108 -18 -17%
53 ID 88 76 12 16%
54 CNBC 82 83 -1 -1%
55 BIO 75 78 -3 -4%
56 DIY 50 n\a 50 n\a
57 ENN 47 48 -1 -2%
58 FSC 24 10 14 140%

ION new owners must be thrilled to bits that for the last five weeks, over a million viewers on average are keeping an eye on ION. Those are the sorts of numbers that will prompt more advertisers to keep an eye on ION too.